


rebuilding

by llgf



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Romance, what happens after the death star is destroyed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 23:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11172147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llgf/pseuds/llgf
Summary: On top of a hill, on Imvur, Jyn is looking through macrobinoculars, looking for any sign of white armor or Empire commanders.“They’re laying low,” she notes.They don’t have to do anything more than report, and Cassian is glad his first mission after the Death Star’s explosion is an easy one.He’s also glad he has another mission with her. Who knows about tomorrow?





	rebuilding

**Author's Note:**

> beta'ed by [garglyswoof](http://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/profile) thanks a lot! you're the best!(I am trying not to make any pish posh notes)  
> that's me trying to figure out what can happen after the Death Star is gone. Of course everybody is alive and well!

They watch the star implode, and he feels a hand slipping in his. He turns his head and while she avoids his gaze, her hand tightens. That's enough. He remembers that he, too, needed to cling on to something when he’d realized how small he was in space. He saw himself in ashes in Scarif. Now he sees himself free without the Death Star. The second one.

He never dared to imagine something beyond the Rebellion. It seemed silly, hurtful and barren. But now her hand slips in his and he wonders if he shouldn’t begin building memories.

With Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze. And Jyn. Now is the perfect time to want more, or even to crave for more.

"Han wants us all to take a drink," Jyn's voice brings him out of his thoughts and the mechanical meteorites floating in the sky, "you coming?"

_ Tomorrow _ , he thinks. Even if it's fuzzy, he's looking forward to it.

And that night, they both smell like alcohol - but the happy kind - and Cassian is holding her tightly against him, and Jyn is drawing with her finger on his arm. 

He thinks it's time to build memories, so he starts memorizing. 

“Remember the mission on Garel?” he whispers. 

Jyn hums. 

“You kissed me first.”

“And when we came back, you said it wasn't how you imagined it,” she adds. 

Cassian had said this in the cantina back at the base, eating dry bread and caf. He’d leaned across the table and whispered the words. 

She’d blushed, and he’d liked the view.

He laughs and she's accompanying him. Jyn turns around to look at him with a fake reproaching expression. “I don't know what shocked me the most. The fact that you didn't like my kiss, or that you imagined kissing me but never even took the first step, Andor.”

“I liked your kiss,” Cassian defends himself, “I just didn't want this short goodbye kiss before a fight.” Jyn had kissed him, flippantly, with a ‘wish me luck’ on her lips before she drew her truncheons out. 

Back in his quarters, he’d shown her. His hands had framed her face, and his lips brushed hers, asking for permission, perhaps, or calculating, or simply realizing.

“Turns out it wasn't a goodbye kiss.” Jyn speaks lowly. 

“I hope we won't have a goodbye kiss.” And it's the closest thing to a promise, a hope, that Cassian can give her - them. 

He had seen a lot of people bleeding, too many funerals, tombs drawing lines on the hills in Fest on Yavin IV. He'd never been afraid of death, it was a common disease in the Rebellion, but he'd held Jyn, tightly, refusing to let go, and had refused to face a too luminous death. 

It could have been a goodbye, but hands had brought him back, hers, and Bodhi's, and he had watched Scarif blowing up like a yellow flower blooming. Jyn had refused to look at it and kept on holding his hand. 

No goodbyes ever since. 

_ Tomorrow _ , he thinks, there will always be a tomorrow. 

They wake up entangled. Jyn goes to the ‘fresher first, because she needs to freshen up her pounding head. 

Cassian glides next to her seconds after. 

They have to leave soon, the Rebellion doesn’t care about Jyn’s headache from  Han’s drinking contest. It’s cleaning time. They must visit the old imperial bases and report what happens.

On top of a hill, on Imvur, Jyn is looking through macrobinoculars, looking for any sign of white armor or Empire commanders. 

“They’re laying low,” she notes. 

They don’t have to do anything more than report, and Cassian is glad his first mission after the Death Star’s explosion is an easy one. 

He’s also glad he has another mission with her. Who knows about tomorrow?

There have been a lot of missions with Jyn. A lot of injuries, a lot of blasters, a lot of running, a lot of white armor; but something’s come out of them. 

It doesn't hit him hard, he just slowly realizes, he learns. 

They're walking back to the ship, Cassian frowning, deep in thought. 

She has a lot of sharp edges. She’s sharpened them herself with her bare hands, or Saw’s, or the stormtroopers’, or even the Rebellion’s. They’ve all shaped her, and Cassian guesses it must be the same thing for him. Survival does that to people. It leaves scars, edges. 

She’s capable of doing terrible things. 

Jyn's skin is hard and thick, years of life accumulated around a soft beating heart. But her eyes are still soft and round, even if they’ve lost any hint of wonder. She smiles too, shyly like it's a bad omen that will only bring the blasters out. 

He made himself a promise to change that, to bring a smile to her lips, and prove her there won’t be an earthquake, no deadly consequences if she smiles - except for his heart. 

He hears yelling. Jyn is not next to him anymore. 

“Jyn?” he calls, and he hears more than he sees her. She’s loudly arguing with a man who apparently shoved her, if he understands her yelling correctly. Her hands are shaking, she’s ready to get her truncheons out, and maybe the Empire has lost their massive weapon, but they’re still under their laws here, at least until Leia takes care of things politically. 

He pulls her to him and runs his finger along the hem of her jacket, caressing her wrist, his lips lingering on her forehead as Jyn mutters “ - punch him,” through gritted teeth. 

“I know, but we have to go home, Jyn.”

It calms her down, the back and forth of his thumb, his shush against her skin. “Fine.”

Cassian has this habit now. He’ll bring her closer, his lips at the crown of her hair, and sneak his thumb under her sleeve to graze the skin of her wrist, drawing a repetitive pattern - his own breathing. 

It’s affection, a luxury. He hadn’t known he craved it until he met Jyn. 

Even more so since he met her again, her eyelashes and hair full of sand, but both of them alive in a ship. He doesn’t particularly like this memory.

“Let’s go.” he mutters, holding her hand tight and not letting go anytime soon, “back to the ship.”

He kisses her forehead, holds her hands - it's a quick reassurance, a reminder. 

“It could have been catastrophic, Jyn.” Kay adds, his mechanical voice hinted with reproaches. 

“Afraid I would have been hurt?” Jyn answers, sarcastically. 

“Of course not. We could have been arrested.”

Jyn rolls her eyes and detaches herself from Cassian, taking a few steps back. 

Cassian’s fist tightens because of the ghost of her touch. He wouldn't say he needs it, but her presence is a wonderful companion. 

K2SO studies their human behavior, notices his hand and his expression. “You touch her approximately every 26 minutes.”

“Thank you, Kay.”

“And I am not even talking about how many times you look at her.”

“Kay -”

“Are you afraid of her reckless attitude? Is that why you watch her?”

“No, Kay -” and so he turns his head and sees her folding a little girl’s hand around a sparkling coin. The little girl hands her a dried flower in return, without nectar or smell, less colorful than the copper Jyn gave her. The child holds the money like a treasure and gives her a smile, her cheeks looking too hungry. Cassian doesn’t want any memories rushing at the sight of it, and he wonders if Jyn is thinking about anything when she squeezes the flower against her heart. 

"Jyn," he calls for her, unconsciously stretching his hand. "Come on." 

She murmurs a thank you with a smile, and Cassian notes and keeps it in mind, that smile; soft, almost vulnerable.

He learns. 

Kay asks, “Where does the money come from?”

Cassian shrugs, not even questioning Jyn’s skills. She could have glided her hand in a stranger’s pocket because that's what she does. She sneaks, steals, but you recognize in the urgency of her movements that it’s only a means to an end. 

When she catches up with him, she doesn't take his outstretched hand, doesn't even look at it, but she gets closer and brushes her fingers against his. Discreetly, because, again, that's what she does: she cares in secret, just like her pendant around her neck, always hidden but heavily present. She keeps it close to her heart and far from curious eyes - with Cassian too. 

Yet, yet, she is different when they’re alone. She speaks, she shows herself, she takes his hand to guide it where she wants it - on her breast, or elsewhere - and he loves all these facets of her.

They try to ignore Kay’s gaze behind them. 

As an answer, he slides a finger under her sleeve, to stroke her wrist. Her skin is soft there like it’s the last place where she’s unmarked by the war or life. He often wonders if she's ever been innocent, unaware of the bleeding planets, or if everything has been taken from her way too early, like him. 

But despite everything, he notes and keeps to himself Jyn’s softness. Cassian takes the flower and he wants to decorate her hair with it, wants to see it next to her eyes, if only to brush his fingers on her cheek.

But he simply ties it to her jacket sleeve for her to see if she has to draw out her blaster again tonight.

Stormtroopers come fighting, so of course, she does. 

But the troops fall easily. They don't know their orders, they don't know who is the leader, so once again, Jyn and Cassian survive. 

They return to the base, wounded and disheveled. Jyn gives him a sharp nod, she wants to see him. Cassian meets her in her quarters, her jacket on the chair, the flower on the table, making the room a little bit more personal. Maybe he sees too many things in this, but it feels like she's finding her place here, in the Rebellion, which fills his head with promises he’d like to keep. 

Jyn holds him close, clinging. 

“It went well,” she mutters, and he answers with a nod. 

Later, the flower is pinned to the wall and it's his jacket on the chair, his boots by the door, and it stays that way for a long time. 

 


End file.
